The Price
by Gospel Stonemad
Summary: It is only a month after the battle of Manhattan that Stark Industries stumbles across a plane in the arctic—a plane once believed to be lost. The news broadcasts the fact that the world is warmer, but all Steve can feel is ice. AU
1. Strength

_The Price_

Strength

* * *

"Ice burns, and it is hard to the warm-skinned to distinguish one sensation, fire, from the other, frost."

_Elementals: Stories of Fire and Ice_

A.S. Byatt

* * *

_Sometimes, he dreamed. _

_But only sometimes. _

_He saw shapeless things while his body sputtering (almost as if it was a truck stuck in a snow drift). Darkness was there—the only constant beside the cold (or was it heat?)—surrounding him in its arms as if they were good friends._

_He often woke up to darkness. Fell asleep to darkness. Dreamed of darkness. _

_There was a face there, too, occasionally. Brown hair like warm chocolate, eyes like honey, lips red like blood (or a flag. But there was more than red on that flag, wasn't there? He thought so—when there was a time to think). _

_If this was the afterlife, it was severely disappointing—he couldn't move, for one. Someone said that he would be able to move when he was dead. Unless he wasn't dead. But life was noisy and he couldn't hear anything except for the ringing of silence so he supposed he was dead. Maybe. Possibly._

_Anyway. It was disappointing. _

_Disappointing and cold. Or hot. Something burned and ached and hurt—dear God his lungs felt like they were bursting and doing nothing at all. It was as if his heart was tearing, as if his entire bearing was tearing. _

_The pain went all the way down to his soul._

_Or his stomach._

_(It was his stomach.)_

_Guess that answered whether or not if he was dead. Unless he was being punished. Maybe lying on the enlistment form was a sin. He knew lying was, but really? For just that? Huh._

* * *

Pepper Potts, CEO of Stark Industries, never told anyone what Project Shield was supposed to be doing. Many of the exec. board members figured it was a waste of money—no profit came from it, no publicity, what use was a project like that? She never told them that it was Tony Stark's idea and that the money had gone into building a robot that could drill through ice and be handled by remote control.

She especially never told them that Tony Stark himself and Bruce Banner were at the controls.

Instead, Pepper smiled at the ideas tossed around, at how the attack on Manhattan made it clear that Stark Industries needed to get back into the weapons business, and then she calmly asked for any new ideas for the clean energy unit and all talk sputtered to a stop.

Her lunch, an hour later, was interrupted by a redhead wearing a black dress suit and red sunglasses that were just a bit too sporty to be worn with the expensive clothing. "Miss Potts," she said without a smile, though she looked over the lenses in their black frames and her blue-green eyes were bright. "Might I join you?"

"Natalie," Pepper grinned, shoulders relaxing before they tensed up again, her eyes widening just slightly at the corners when she realized her mistake. "Natasha, sorry—"

The agent waved her hand in a lazy '_it's fine_' gesture and sat, one leg folded over the other, her heel of her black Saint Laurent's tapping against her pale calf, almost catching on black tights. "Natalie is fine," Her smile was sharp—all angles with less curves—but no less genuine. "Both of them are Americanized versions of my name."

Pepper grins at that slightly reluctant bit of information. "Well, Natasha, what can I do for you?"

"Would you accept that I just wanted to get out of the boys' club house?" The redhead ordered a cherry limeade from the waiter and tapped her nails on the table. A few men passed their table, dressed in three piece suits, but Natasha and Pepper ignored their admiring gazes. "It's like a college dorm."

The CEO nodded and sipped at her own drink, smiling around the straw. "I know, believe me." Their waiter came back and Pepper ordered a chicken wrap while Natasha's English dipped into Italian. "Any other reasons, though?"

"Do you think they'll be able to do it?" Her eyes were unreadable behind the sunglasses, but, then again, Natasha's eyes were unreadable covered or uncovered. "Be able to find him?"

Raising one eyebrow, Pepper bit her bottom lip. "There's better technology now than when Howard Stark first started," She started tentatively. "With Tony alone, no, I don't think he would have been able to because he never had a reason to find him."

"But with Bruce?"

"And Coulson," the CEO added softly, eyes downcast. "I think, now, he has more of a reason. More of a mission."

Natasha gave her one of Natalie Rushmore's smiles—gentle, soft. Everything the PA was supposed to be and the assassin wasn't. "And Tony Stark always completes a mission."

Pepper laughed. "Or dies trying," she grinned. "He probably hasn't slept for days."

"He hasn't," Natasha deadpanned and rolled her eyes, fingers playing with the straw in her limeade. "Neither of them have."

_Scientists_, both of them thought with varying degrees of amusement. Neither of them could mock the two men for their enthusiasm, though; they had felt the same, burning need to get a job done (even though one's vocation generally ended up with someone dead. Pepper decided long ago not to really think about that side of Natasha's life).

Their meals came and went, the city passing around them as conversation turned from Tony Stark and his robots to the Avengers and, finally, SHIELD—though Phil Coulson wasn't exactly mentioned, there was no doubt he was in the back of both women's minds.

"Are you going back to work then?" Pepper asked around a cup of coffee. "Going to go back to doing secret, undercover things?" From anyone else it would have sounded mocking—but this was Pepper Potts. Ruthless CEO and a sweetheart friend.

Natasha smirked and sipped at her tea. "Seeing that I have two jobs now, there's _really_ no reason for me to go back to them," her eyes glinted with something that looked like secrets and pleasure. "But, yes, I will be working for Fury again. They gave me time off because of, well..." Her hand waved around at the bustling streets of Manhattan.

The CEO could only smile at that because, yes, her friend (and boyfriend) had saved the world. "To victories on the field and in the office," Pepper held up her coffee and Natasha laughed, but clinked their mugs together.

"To victories."

* * *

_Sometimes, he remembered._

_Well, remembered wasn't __**really**__ the right word seeing that he only saw faces, or remembered to breathe (can you forget to breathe? It felt like lifetimes sometimes), or his heart finally decided to move again (when had it stopped?)._

_A wood frog crossed his mind. He wasn't quite sure __**why**__ the wood frog was there or even how he knew it was a wood frog. But there it was—a wood frog. Did it eat wood, he wondered, because there must be some extraordinary reason as to why his brain suddenly gave him a wood frog of all things._

_Maybe it had to do with the cold._

_Yeah. It was probably the cold._

* * *

High on the European side of the Arctic circle, a few miles south of the Norway-Russia border line, a spidery robot climbed it's way over ice and snow. Winds buffered the side, howling, but they didn't bother the machine.

On the other side of the globe, Bruce Banner wore something that looked a lot like a modern motorcycle helmet—the front completely black, the sides painted red and gold. It was like the virtual games in Disney's game park in Orlando, except this one was real.

Tony Stark had two holographic screens in front of him, measuring and calculating currents, wind speed, how fast the plane had been going. "Jarvis, pull up the map my father followed to find the tesseract," the billionaire said, his voice floating through the helmet Bruce wore.

The doctor was looking over the desert of ice, sonar to his right, a metal detector to his left. "You know," he said with mild amusement—the same mild amusement he always had, actually. "This isn't really my field of expertise."

"Is there anyone who specializes in finding frozen soldiers?" Tony grumbled and expanded the map in front of him with two fingers, drawing a line from the small red dot marking where the tesseract had been pulled from the ocean. He tapped a few images and then waved them towards Bruce and they appeared on the doctor's screen. An area fanning out from the dot was highlighted in blue and, in the middle of it, was a small green dot that moved when the robot in the Arctic circle did.

"What areas have we already checked?"

Tony grunted, replaying the choppy, static filled last conversation of Steve Rogers a for what seemed like the hundredth time. "Jarvis?"

"_Yes, sir,"_ the A.I. said, both above them and in the helmet. About half of the area was highlighted in red. Bruce didn't jump anymore, but there was a time when the computer had just about given him a heart attack every time it (he?) spoke. It had seemed like neither computer nor Tony had really cared for his blood pressure and... well, it was nice not to have people tip-toeing around him.

Granted, none of the other Avengers really tip-toed around him at all. Natasha had for the first few days—but she had also been chased through the helicarrier by an irate Hulk. She deserved _some_ credit for not abhorring his guts. Clint Barton hadn't been in his right mind, and the fact that he and the Hulk first met each other by teaming up wasn't a bad start.

Thor seemed to want the Hulk to come back so they might have a 'glorious battle'. Unfortunately, Tony was pretty sure that the so called 'glorious battle' would level what was left of Manhattan so the Asgardian never had the chance before he left for his home, Loki at his side. Everyone had been ecstatic to see the trickster go—especially Agent Barton and Doctor Selvig.

Something beeped on the screen and Bruce was torn from his thoughts. "Tony?"

The billionaire's chair squeaked as he turned around, pulling up the image on the other man's screen up on one of his own. "Look at that," Tony breathed, tracing the outline of a lumpy, broken shape. He pulled up one of the blueprint scans for the plane and compared the image on the radar to what had been drawn by Zola over seventy years ago. "Scan for area," both scientists pulled back—Bruce pulling the helmet from over his head and blinking at the bright lights of the lab.

"We're going to need something to pull him out," Bruce ran one hand through his hair, ignoring the way his heart thudded in his chest and a cool sweat broke across his forehead—excitement. That's what this was. For the first time since the Hulk was created, Doctor Banner had the overwhelming urge to giggle like a school girl. Because he was a highly respected scientist, he resisted the urge. "And to get him back here—"

Tony spread his arms, grinning broadly. "Private plane," he said. "Iron Man. Billionaire."

"Mmhmm," the doctor hummed absently even as the computer beeped and zoomed in on the left rudder. "He was in the cock pit, so—" Bruce circled over the area with a finger and zoomed in, overlaying the blueprints with the snow and ice, lining up the rudders. "Here," he tapped where the cockpit should be and pulled the helmet back on, controlling the robot once more.

The billionaire spouted out orders for JARVIS—something about getting one of his smaller planes ready and making sure SHIELD didn't know he was leaving the country for a few days. He put on his suit a few minutes later as the robot was making its way over the frozen plane.

"See you on the other side," Tony grinned before the faceplate closed and he took off.

Bruce shook his head and grinned wiry to himself. "How long will it take you to get there?"

"_No more than an hour,"_ the billionaire's voice came through the helmet, just like JARVIS' did. _"Probably sooner than that if I don't get stopped by Fury and his merry gang of twitchy porcupines."_

"Twitchy porcupines?"

Tony's face appeared in the upper left hand corner surrounded by black and lit up by blue. _"They're so jumpy and bristly." _The billionaire met the other man's eyes with one of his half-grins. _"So; twitchy porcupines."_

The robot clambered over a bit of jagged ice, climbing up the little cliff like a spider. Bruce tracked it's progress on the screen as it headed up the dorsal of the plane.

"_Doctor Banner,"_ JARVIS spoke up. _"Miss Potts has just arrived with Agents Barton and Romanoff. Shall I tell them where you are?"_

Bruce guided the robot out of a little valley in the snow. "Yeah, sure," he murmured distractedly as snow collapsed under machinery again. "Tony, I'm going to start melting the ice."

"_Alright. My plane just took off and will arrive about an hour after I get here."_

"Are you hiding secrets from SHIELD again, Stark?" Natasha spoke up and Bruce jumped, almost ripping the helmet off his head. She laid a hand on his shoulder and a screen popped up beside Tony's head, showing her looking over the screens, Clint at her side. "You found it?"

Tony smiled—wide and bright. _"Was there ever any doubt?"_

Both the assassins stared at him, hardly amused. Natasha and Clint both played with a few of the images on the screen, expanding them, making them smaller, until the spider robot's footage widened to take up most of the space. "What will you do after you find him?"

"Try to develop a... cure," Bruce murmured as the robot lit up a laser and started to drill through the ice. "If there's any tissue left that can be salvaged."

No one said anything to that. In fact, no one said much of anything after that. There were a few murmurs on Tony and Bruce's behalf, but they were merely updating each other on the status of the ice and where the Iron Man suit was.

"I'm through," Bruce grinned as metal fell with an echoing clang, highlighted from the bright light coming from the machine while the robot peered into inky blackness. "I can't see anything, though."

"_Well, any light that lasts since 1945 gains my respect_," Tony grinned. _"Especially in a crashed plane."_

"Even if it's HYDRA?" One of Natasha's perfect eyebrows rose.

Tony frowned for a second. _"Okay,"_ he grumbled. _"Maybe not for them—hard to be impressed by a group of rogue Nazis."_

Snorting, Bruce had the robot jump without a 'by-your-leave' from Tony and breathed out a sigh of relief as it hit the ground and didn't go shooting off in various sized pieces. "Well, _you've_ certainly built your machines to last."

"_I didn't factor in you making it jump to it's possible death_," Tony drawled. _"But I'm glad I took some things into account."_

"Look at that," Clint murmured, pointing to the towers of ice. They glistened when the light fell upon them, reflecting like blue diamonds. There was a very thin layer of snow that covered a layer of ice that got thicker and thicker the closer the robot moved towards the front of the cock pit. "That must be where the tesseract was kept."

There was the machine—all tubes and wires, looking like an Egyptian pyramid except for the fact that it was round and black. In which case it didn't _really_ look like one of the great pyramids, but it did tower over the small spider machine so it seemed large and grandeur—sitting in a massive tomb of ice.

Bruce went past it, down over a small ramp and shone the light across a chair and controls that looked as if they were painted white. "He would have been in that chair when he hit," the doctor murmured, easing the machine closer. There was only one hole in the glass, though—and it was filled with ice and snow that spilled across the ground. The stairs up to the chair were covered the thickest, as if water spilled through that hole and washed over the controls and the chair before it all froze.

"He sat there," Clint murmured, his eyes wide like a child's, hand reaching out to the screen as if he could touch it. "He sat _there_ when he died—"

No one really thought over what _that_ meant—well, except for Bruce.

"The initial hit wouldn't have killed him," The doctor said softly, looking over the chair, the controls, any sign of blood or damage—and there was none. "He would have still been alive when the water washed over him and either drowned or... or starved."

Even Tony was silent, unable to make any type of joke about that.

"What's that?" Clint shot out suddenly, pointing at something on the screen. He had moved so quickly that his arm almost smacked Natasha in the nose. "That!" The archer touched the screen and it highlighted on Bruce's and Tony's.

"_Is that...?"_ The billionaire breathed, his own eyes focused on the Spider robot's screen (rather than his own and the doctor thought about telling him to watch where he was going, but what would Tony hit? A goose?).

Moving the machine forward, Bruce had it climb up onto the ice. The circular shield was unmistakable—red and white painted on the outside with blue in the centre and a white stare right smack dab in the middle of it all. A big target, really—it didn't look too different than the purple ones upstairs Clint used to train.

Only that target was made out of the rarest and strongest metal on the planet.

"Gentlemen," Natasha grinned in a way they had never seen her before. "I think you've just found the gold mine."

Tony chuckled, his eyes suddenly moving across his own screen. _"I believe, Agent Romanoff, that you mean that we found America's National Treasure."_

Clint laughed outright at that one, but it sounded vaguely (_only_ vaguely) hysterical.

The ground quaked and Tony dropped through the hole in the plane and landed. His suit was oddly giant against the small camera on the spider robot, and the red hand that lifted the machine was massive.

It gave Bruce, Natasha, and Clint a better viewpoint, though.

"_Let's see what we've got then,"_ Tony murmured and they watched lasers cut through the ice, bit by bit. Chunks were shaved off and kicked to the side where they clattered against iron and steel. A vague form was starting to become visible—as if they were all looking through a dense fog. Grunting, Tony grabbed one side of the large chunk he had separated from the rest and turned it over. _"Well, Doc."_ The billionaire grinned broadly. _"Looks like it's your lucky day."_

The team stared at the youthful features of Steve Rogers. His blond hair was frozen in a mess, dirt stained his cheeks, and there looked to be quite a few bruises preserved over time on his neck and face. Perfectly frozen. Perfectly preserved.

Silence flooded the lab before Clint spoke up.

"Holy shit," The archer breathed out while Bruce removed the helmet and powered down the spider robot. "We found Captain America." Natasha and Bruce both turned to him, their faces not even remotely closed to being amused even as Clint shrugged sheepishly. "What?" He grinned. "We did!"

"_I'll have him loaded onto the plane in an hour,"_ Tony spoke up and they looked back at the screen. _I might be able to melt some of the ice a bit before I get him on board."_

Bruce nodded once. "Do it," he ran one hand through his hair. "Be sure not to—"

"_Damage the tissue. Yeah, I know."_ The billionaire flashed him a smug, arrogant grin that seemed even more exasperating now that it was lit up by blue light and shadowed slightly. _"Don't worry, Doc, everything's going to be fine."_

_Famous last words,_ Bruce thought to himself, but returned the other man's smile with his own small and tentative one.

* * *

Thank you for reading and please drop a review!

Gospel


	2. Freedom

_The Price_

Freedom

* * *

"Ice contains no future, just the past, sealed away. As if they're alive, everything in the world is sealed up inside, clear and distinct. Ice can preserve all kinds of things that way—cleanly, clearly. That's the essence of ice, the role it plays."

_Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman_

Haruki Murakami

* * *

All files said that the large container in the back of the ironed van currently moving through the streets of Manhattan held new equipment for a new version of the Iron Man suit.

All files said that Tony Stark himself had gone to oversee the equipment, to make sure it was what he ordered and that it was, to the billionaire's standards, perfect.

The SHIELD agent looking over those files didn't know Tony Stark. Didn't know that he was a master of lies and deception, holding onto a mask that had helped him survive a cave in Afghanistan. This agent tried to find the normal signs of hacking—at least, according to SHIELD's ten step guide—but Tony Stark wasn't the normal hacker. The files were stamped with approval and passed along to the archives where they would begin to collect dust.

"We'll put him there," Bruce said and, if he had been any other man, Tony was sure he would have been bouncing on the balls of his feet. His hand was pointing to an area that was mostly clear and had drains in the floor underneath the pumpkin orange safety showers. Neither of them were working on something particularly acidic, so they figured it wouldn't be _completely_ against regulations to put a frozen super soldier in the way.

Not that there was anyone to complain about it—unless Clint decided to be an asshole. The archer _was_ jumping up and down, moving like a whirlwind through the laboratory, so Tony figured that he wasn't actually going to do something. Natasha managed to be the only still person in the room; setting up the heating equipment with steady hands and a blank face. Her eyes were shining, though—the only sign of excitement she allowed herself to reveal to them.

It took all four of them to lift the ice man onto the steel medical table. There were holes drilled into the metal. The heat lamps flickered on, glowing orange and moving from the top of the table to the bottom and then back again. Bruce handed out little hand-held heaters, waving his over some of the larger sections of ice to work them down closer to the captain's body.

Water dripped to the drains, melting fast enough to create miniature waterfalls. JARVIS turned on some music without being asked, keeping the volume low enough not to be intrusive, and Tony hummed along.

"I would ask you if this was a job for someone else," Pepper said when she had come down wearing the same white skirt she had been wearing when she had met up with Natasha for lunch earlier that day and a black tank top. She handed over coffees and teas before leaning over to look at Steve Roger's frozen features—his eyes closed as if he was sleeping, lips slightly parted. "But I figured you would all want to do this yourself."

"For Coulson," Clint murmured, more distracted than usual as he unveiled a leather boot. He was sweating slightly, the heat lamp hovering over his head for a few more seconds than the others simply because he was at the end. "And for Bruce," the archer added, grinning sheepishly at the scientist and started on the other shoe.

Bruce said nothing, working with strained patience (but he'd been looking forward to this moment for six long years—he can wait another hour) at the Captain's head while Natasha and Tony thawed out his chest. Blonde hair drooped under dampness and pale cheeks were splattered black, red, and purple from ice burns. The steel table was heating up underneath the body, thawing out the body so more and more water streamed down the side, dripping to the floor.

"He looks like he's..."

_Sleeping_, Tony thought about filling in for Natasha. _Ready to_ _get up off the table?_

It was true—his skin was flawless except for the burns. No sign of decay or wasted tissue, muscles preserved and still holding their strength despite the cells being saturated with salt water for seven decades. There were a few bruises on his cheeks and neck, and a couple were slowly being revealed by Natasha on gloved hands as well. His eyes were softly closed, lips open just enough so it seemed as if he was sleeping—

"_Sir,"_ JARVIS sounded slightly alarmed, _"Sir, I'm picking up something."_

A holographic screen appeared above Rogers and they watched as the blank line—the heart monitor—suddenly jerked, buckling up before going flat again.

Every single one of them froze.

Except Clint.

Clint who, when surprised, _apparently_ drops his hand even though it might be holding an arrow, a folder filled with papers, or, heaven forbid, a _hand held heater_.

Everyone's eyes were on that single, white line. Daring it to move again.

"Was that a heartbeat?" The archer's voice was slightly higher pitched than normal. "Was that a—"

"Clint!" Natasha snapped and he looked down, immediately pulling the heater back up once he realized that steam was rising off the captain's knee and the leather was just a tiny bit singed.

Tony laughed and Bruce grinned, but instead of flushing, Clint shrugged and smiled ruefully. "What? I'm not allowed to be shocked when a guy frozen in ice for seventy years—" The line jerked again and his voice became just a smidgen more high pitched. "—_suddenly has a heartbeat_."

"He's still _alive_—" Bruce started to move faster, working on the fingers still trapped in ice. They were pink and battered and scratched raw. Some blood started to ooze from thin cuts across the battered knuckles. "We need to get him unfrozen."

No one said _'duh'_ or _'what do you think we've been doing'_. They just worked faster, chipping away at the ice, putting heated water bottles (Pepper's idea) against his sides and under his arm pits while one of those pillows that could be heated up in the microwave was placed, carefully, beneath his head.

Bruce kept an eye on the escalating heart rate and ticked off the signs and symptoms of hypothermia in his head.

Not that it fully prepared him for what happened next.

The heart rate monitor burst into action that sent Bruce scrambling instinctually as if he was witnessing a man going into cardiac arrest.

Steve Rogers arched upon the medical table, his eyes (and they _were_ blue, Bruce noticed absently. Blue like the ice that they had pulled him from) snapping open, pupils shrinking into dots so small they were almost not there at all. Water spilled from the corner of his mouth even as his hands clawed at the table, the air, anything who could reach. The Avengers backed away, out of his grasp, scrambling without their usual grace so they weren't snatched or knocked away by flailing limbs.

The captain rolled himself onto his side. Vomit, saturated with thawing saltwater, hit a drain and Steve Rogers heaved a second, third, _fourth_ time over the side of the table—only nothing came up. Stomach empty.

Broad shoulders were shaking, hands braced against steel before he was clambering off metal, grabbing one of the unused heaters off a tray, and pressed his back against the nearest wall. He held up the small machine as if it was a knife—out and pointed at them, the other hand back and open while he fell, naturally, into a fighting stance. "_Wer sind sie_?" He demanded with a voice that was gravelly and rough, still working around syllables after being encased in ice. The roughness of German just seemed to fit. "_Wo bin ich_?" Each breath made his chest heave, small bits of ice falling from the red, white, and blue suit to the ground.

Natasha opened her mouth to speak when Clint nudged her with his elbow, already seeing the German words on her tongue. "You're in New York, Captain Rogers," he said, putting both hands up where the other man could see him. "Manhattan, New York."

Captain Roger's eyes were on Natasha, though, wide and staring, searching her face. They were glazed over, pupils still small enough to look animalistic even though they couldn't focus fully on anything. "I—" He tried and swayed a bit, favouring one leg now that they were looking. Those bright blue eyes blinked slowly, eyelids drooping with exhaustion as the adrenaline seeped almost visibly from his body until the captain looked more like a boy than the super soldier they had heard stories about and had read comics of. "P-Peggy?"

Reaching a hand out, Natasha frowned while he shivered. "Captain—" Her eyes widened in surprise as he suddenly pitched forward, the hand heater falling with a clatter to the floor. Two hundred pounds of muscle hit her. The assassin braced herself, catching him in her arms, gasping as his weight slammed against her petite, though strong, body. With Clint's help, she managed to lower to super soldier gently down to the wet tile where Bruce could check his pulse and temperature.

"He needs rest," the doctor said at last. "Let him sleep and have Jarvis monitor him."

Pepper was already on her phone, calling for someone to get one of the spare rooms in the tower ready—and ordering some shirts, pants, underwear, and socks while she was at it.

The shield was still on the table, still in the ice, and Tony quickly wrenched it free. "He might want something familiar," the billionaire said with a shrug and the others merely looked at each other, some of them with smiles on their faces. "What?" he grumbled and Clint laughed.

No one did answer him, though.

"His room's ready," Pepper said, looking up from her phone after a few minutes. "Do you need Happy to...?"

"I think we've got this," Tony took one arm, handing the shield over to the CEO while Bruce took the other. The assassins each grabbed a leg. "One, two, three—" They all lifted with variously painful sounding grunts.

Natasha and Clint worked their way backwards, careful to go around the tables covered in equipment. "How much does he weigh?" The redhead managed to grit out.

"Two hundred and forty pounds," Bruce grunted while Clint muttered "is this really a time to be joking?"

"Who says I'm joking?" Natasha hissed, lifting higher as her blue-green eyes narrowed and sharpened like her knives.

Pepper opened the door for them, the shield resting on her forearm. "It's lighter than I expected," she murmured in surprise, tracing the paint with one perfectly manicured nail. "With everything it went through..."

"It's made of vibranium," the billionaire readjusted his grip. "Isn't there an easier way to do this?"

"Sure," Clint grinned. "You're the one who grabbed an arm, though."

It was Pepper who pressed the elevator button and Pepper who guided them to the room where their guest would be staying. They didn't put him on the bed just yet, though. Bruce pulled out a shirt and some sweatpants from the stack of new clothes in the wardrobe. Rogers was stripped down and quickly dried off with some dark blue Stark Industries towels before being dressed—again—and placed on top of the beige duvet that covered the bed. After a moment, Natasha covered him with a thick, fluffed up blanket meant for the winter as he shivered, teeth chattering.

The shield was placed on top of some drawers; leaning against the wall and in perfect view from the pillow and the captain would only need to turn his head when he woke up to see it.

* * *

_He dreamed about Brooklyn, about the smell of smoke and Italian dinners wafting through the streets. How the baker on the corner was just getting back on his feet and the market had new fruits and vegetables every Friday, even though they were worn down by the heat and humidity of New York._

_He dreamed of fists in alley ways, of milkshakes, of 'Dinnéar!' shouted from windows to children playing baseball between red brick buildings. There was a boy with a quick smile and dark hair that seemed to almost always be slicked back, a man with circular glasses and a greying beard, a soldier wearing beige with a faded leather jacket._

_Most of all, though, he dreamed of the woman with the chocolate hair and honey eyes and painted red lips._

_Those lips were like roses, like blood, like womanhood and war. They tasted like gunpowder and cinnamon, but he didn't know how he knew that—only that it came to him in a dream. _

_Everything came to him in dreams._

* * *

Just because JARVIS was watching Captain Steve Rogers didn't mean that the others didn't visit. Visit was the wrong word for it, actually—they all sat vigil for at least an hour at separate, seemingly scheduled, intervals.

"Like soldiers on the lookout," Pepper said fondly. Though, she was just as guilty; sitting there with Natasha, the two of them reading and drinking their tea while they waited for any sign of movement from the Captain.

"_Excuse me,"_ JARVIS spoke up above them. His voice was softer than normal but whether that was because of the AI or Tony turned the volume down, no one could be sure, _"Director Fury requests your presence in the main lounge, Agent Romanoff."_

Sighing, the redhead got to her feet, stretching like a leopard after a long nap and set her book off to the side. "Tell him I'm coming," she seemed to grumble (_seemed_ to. Because Black Widow doesn't _actually_ grumble).

Nick Fury's face filled the giant screen in the lounge area, his arms crossed over his chest, single eye glaring at Tony who had decided to lay about on the couch as if he was a sloth. The billionaire grinned at her and waved with one hand, Clint perched on the arm rest behind his head. "Hello, Widow. How was girl time?"

"We painted each other's nails and shared awful sex stories," she placed her hands on her hips and scowled at him. "_Awful_ sex stories."

Clint snickered and Tony pushed him off his perch. Bruce didn't even bother looking up from his five layer sandwich.

"If you happen to be _done_," Fury scowled at them all even as Natasha sat down in one of the arm chairs, heels hooking, arms crossed over her chest. "We have a problem."

"You don't call us if there's _not_ a problem," Tony pointed out, flicking a piece of lint at Bruce.

The other scientist turned green-tinted eyes towards the billionaire and took a far more ferocious-than-was-necessary bite out of his sandwich. Tony winced as the meat and bread ripped between teeth and held up his hands to pacify the green giant under the surface.

"Would you stop aggravating the man, Stark?" Fury snapped. "There is a problem down at 49th street. I _suggest_ you go look at it." The screen went dark and the Avengers blinked, staring up at it.

"Someone forgot to have their milk this morning," Tony grumbled. "Jarvis? Check out what's on 49th for me." The billionaire turned to head back down to his workshop. "And someone should tell Pepper she'll be on babysitting duty for a while."

The assassins exchanged a look even while Bruce polished off his sandwich and licked off the bit of ketchup on his fingers. "I'm guessing I'm staying here?" He asked the AI.

"_You might not be able to, sir,"_ JARVIS answered, sounding apologetic. _"It appears to be a group that calls themselves the 'Wrecking Crew'."_

Natasha and Clint were already heading towards the elevator. "That wasn't Fury's usual style," the redhead said just loud enough for the man next to her to hear.

"He could just be under stress," the archer returned, pressing one of the buttons to go down so he could fetch his quiver and bow from his own room. "Dealing with Stark has to be exhausting on its own."

Pressing the button for the floor where both Pepper and the captain were, Natasha frowned. "Perhaps."

"You think it's something else?"

"I always think it's something else." She stepped off when the doors opened. "Tell Stark I'll meet you all out front."

Clint nodded and the door closed, leaving Natasha to walk towards the room they were keeping the captain in alone. She didn't bother to knock and settled for opening it slowly instead. "Pepper? There's been an attack. Tony wanted to make sure you were fine with watching our... guest."

The strawberry blonde looked up from her book with a smile. "He's the perfect gentleman," the CEO grinned and glanced back at the prone figure on the bed. "You four be safe, alright?"

"Of course," Natasha waved her hand, heading back to the doors and sounding almost insulted that she could be thought of as anything else.

* * *

Pepper looked up from her book about a half hour after Natasha had left and smiled at the soldier's peaceful face. He had managed to stop shivering a while ago, breathing deeply and even snoring softly. The CEO's attention was brought back to her empty mug of tea and, sighing, she got up from her chair, set her novel next to the shield, and headed out of the room to get more.

The elevator ride was short and she hummed to herself while she walked through the lounge area. It was shockingly quiet now that none of the others were around, but Pepper just smiled to herself. Noise always would come back eventually, after all.

A black kettle was already sitting on the stove from where Natasha had left it earlier—it just needed to be refilled. As water boiled, Pepper fished through the tea boxes in the cabinet, enjoying the mixture of spices that seemed to be ingrained into the air. "Let's see..." she murmured to herself and grinned at a box with a bright orange painted tiger on the side. "I'm sure Natasha wouldn't mind if I tried you—" She turned around and gasped, box and mug falling to the floor with a crash. "Jarvis!"

The AI didn't answer—only static came through the speakers.

"_Jarv—_" Her scream was cut off, a yellow gloved hand closing over her mouth. Pepper yelped as her back was pressed into the counter top, her heels slipping on a tea bag and broken ceramic while her own, slender hands wrapped around a thick wrist. _Damn it_, she thought and—exasperatedly—realized that there was no panic rising up in her chest. _This is __**really**__ getting old._

Heels might have been made so women's legs looked sexier (or, in some cases, to make it harder to run) but that didn't make them hurt any less when they stabbed into thick thighs. The man—because it was a man—hissed and wrenched backwards, dropping Pepper and reaching for his bleeding leg.

Grabbing the kettle off the stove, she smashed it into the side of the yellow safety gear on his head. The steel dented and boiling water splashed across the floor.

"There!" Pepper snapped and stood over his unconscious form, one hand on her waist. "Stop breaking into my house!" She turned around to set the kettle back on the stove (pointedly ignoring the very human-head-shaped dent in the side) and froze, staring at the numerous mustard clad figures staring at her.

"Crap," she murmured.

* * *

_Her name came to him now. Peggy. Peggy Carter. She leaned over him, those curls brushing his cheeks felt like water they were so silky, her hands on his chest. "Hello Captain," she murmured and her voice was like spring rain. _

_He shivered, but smiled drowsily up at her. Was he a captain? That was nice. _

_Her hands were cold against his chest._

"_Steve," one painted crimson nail brushed across his nose. It was sharp enough to faintly sting and the skin wrinkled. "You have to wake up, Steve."_

"_I don't want to," he whispered and her palms cupped his cheeks. Why were they so cold? _

_Her laugh—soft and warm—made his heart thrum. "You have to," Peggy's honey eyes were dark, though. Sad. "Wake up, Steve. You __**must**__ wake up."_

_The gasp that tore through his lips was silver and floated upwards like smoke. "Please," he said, and didn't know what he was begging for except she looked so __**sad**__. "Peggy—"_

_She kissed him and her lips were like ice._

_**Ice**_**.**

Blue eyes snapped open, pupils shrinking before dilating. A chill washed over Steve Rogers, a shiver that made his bones seem like glaciers and the blood in his veins and arteries like slush. There was a moment of instant awareness, his mind snapping into alignment with his body so quickly that it almost physically hurt.

It _did_ physically hurt, he realized as his heart thundered in his chest, his ribs expanding slowly, agonizingly, with each breath. The world slowed down and sped up, spinning when he moved as if trying to keep him on the bed.

There was a sound somewhere above him; crashing and yelling. A woman, he thought almost without realizing it, his body and mind scrambling to catch up to... _something_ because so many things were happening at once—the sounds, the smells, the reality of everything flooding back to him.

_The plane_.

No, no, he couldn't think about that now. Not yet.

His shield waited for him, a novel beside it. The soldier's thoughts caught up to the sounds upstairs as another crash came from a few floors above. That's when he moved, hand wrapping around his shield, bursting out through the doors. A large, red sign said EXIT and he followed it to stairs.

Steve took them two at a time, not even noticing the sweatpants hanging low around his hips or the shirt that was just a bit too soft.

"_Let me go!"_ came through a door and he smashed through it, shield out front, his eyes narrowed.

A young woman was pinned to a wall by some man dressed in what looked like one of the chemical suits Stark used when working with some particularly nasty HYDRA equipment—only it was a gaudy, blinding yellow that reminded the soldier of crusty yellow paint. It was the woman's hair, though, that made him stare.

The strands were the colour of the strawberry lemonade he managed to try on good days when he was just a boy, bought from the lady around the block. His mother would come home smiling, the sun would heat the street enough for eggs to roast on the pavement, but they would both get a glass and sip it with giggles and smiles through white straws.

It was both sweet and sour, biting at his tongue and the back of his throat and cooling down his skin.

"I believe the lady told you to let her go," Steve snarled, holding his shield out and breaking himself away from memories. They might have been HYDRA agents, they might not have been, but it was clear this wasn't their home—and he had no time for bullies.

For a second, the man stared at him, eyes invisible behind the dark visor on his face before he pointed at Steve. "Take him dow—"

The shield slammed into the speaker and rebounded as if it was a rubber ball, hitting a second man and knocking him, too, to the ground. The yellow figures stared and Steve jumped forward, ripping the weapon (a gun, and a normal looking one at that) from slack hands.

A good kick from Captain America on a good day was able to break spines.

A good kick from Captain America on a bad day was enough to make you spill your breakfast across the floor and _not want to get up ever again_.

Unfortunately for the men in yellow, this was not a good day and Steve Rogers was not a happy man. The shield rung like a bell when it smacked someone clear across the room—a pan sung the same way when the strawberry blonde brought it down over a skull.

"Thank you, Captain," she smiled and brushed her hair back, smoothing down her white skirt and blouse as if there weren't a bunch of groaning and unconscious figures laying around the room. "My name is Pepper Potts."

"A pleasure, ma'am," he held out his hand for her and they shook, wide smiles on both their faces. "I'm Steve Rogers."

She held up the dented kettle. "Tea?"

* * *

"_Sir,"_ JARVIS started while the wrecking crew were being loaded up into the back of a SHIELD van, _"I cannot connect with the main frame back at the tower."_

Tony frowned. "What do you mean you cannot connect?"

"_I mean,"_ The AI managed to sound as droll as possible and the billionaire was sure that he hadn't _programmed_ the computer to sound like that. _"That I am __**unable**__ to __**connect**__, sir."_

The rest of the Avengers looked up. Bruce, wrapped in a long, green blanket, blinked and frowned. He still looked a bit dazed to be back in his normal, human form, but they could see the dots being connected behind his eyes at the same speed they were in Tony's head. "Pepper," the billionaire breathed, turned on his heel, and shot into the sky.

"Excuse me!" Clint climbed over to one of the black cars SHIELD owned, pushing an agent out of the way with a smile that made him look way too pleased with himself. "Official Avengers business—" He already had the car started by the time Natasha and Bruce climbed in. Tires squealed against asphalt, leaving long black marks behind. It didn't take him very long to figure out where Tony was going and cars honked angrily at him as he tore through the streets.

Bruce looked a little green in the back seat, clutching his blanket a little closer—but it was the _'I'm going to throw up into your quiver'_ shade of viridian rather than the _'if you don't slow down I might turn into a raging giant'_ kind. They all saw the Iron Man suit land on the pad at Stark Tower and Clint pressed the pedal to the floor.

"It would be nice, you know," he drawled as cars squealed and honked behind him, Natasha bracing herself against the walls of the vehicle. "If he could just _wait_ for us before barging in."

None of them really reacted to the sight of something large, red, and gold being thrown out of the towering windows of the lounge area. Natasha may have sighed in exasperation. _May have_ being the correct words because she just rested her head in both her hands and took deep, long, calming breaths.

Bruce didn't look all too concerned. "Slow down, please," he asked from the backseat, swaying back and forth.

Clint didn't because, for one, if Bruce Hulk'd out it might be better if he was closer to the action and, two, if he vomited it would also be best if they were closer to the tower so they could get him upstairs, damn whatever else was there.

High above them, not noticing the black SHIELD car approaching his building, Tony Stark stared at the blue eyed, blonde haired man standing in the middle of the living room wearing a t-shirt and sweatpants. The whole image _may_ have been amusing on a good day seeing that he was surrounded by what looked like highly armed, yellow clad AIM jockeys, but the gleaming, circular shield (that certainly looked like it had better days) on the man's arm and the long, deep gash across the Iron Man suit made this hardly funny at all.

"Steve! _Steve!_" Pepper shouted from the kitchen, two mugs of steaming tea in her hands. "He's a friend," she urged, putting the drinks down and reaching for the soldier. "It's okay, he actually lives here."

"I _live_ here?" the face plate went up and, keeping an eye on the shield in case it smacked him in the face, Tony landed. "That's it?"

She rolled her eyes and tugged on the blonde's arm, urging to sit down on the couch. "Twelve percent," the CEO narrowed her eyes at him, pointing a finger at the glowing arc reactor before gently pushing the soldier onto the couch and shoved a mug of tea into his hands—which, now that Tony was looking, were shaking. "Here," Pepper murmured, sliding the shield off his arm and set it down so it was leaning against the couch.

Walking down the deck, Tony watched as Steve Rogers stared, watching the machines take off the suit of armour. "Sleeping Beauty woke up," the billionaire flashed him a smarmy grin but the other man just frowned slightly—not in confusion, but as if he was figuring out an annoying riddle.

"You're a Stark."

The words were almost like a slap to the face and both Tony and Pepper stared at the man on the couch until the soldier was shifting uncomfortably. "How did you know _that_?" If the billionaire's voice came out a bit sharper than it should have, well—

Steve shrugged and looked down, like a child who was just told that staring was wrong. "You have the same eyes," he murmured, blinking slowly before glancing back up at them. "What year is it?"

"Captain—"

The look that landed on Tony reminded him, suddenly, that this man had fought a war and lead soldiers. It was the look of a man who had no time for bullshit answers.

"2013," Pepper said softly and they both jumped as the mug slipped from two lax hands, tea splashing over bared toes yet Steve gave no sign of feeling it, his eyes widening before closing as ceramic rolled around at his feet.

He looked like someone had just shoved a sword through his back. Each breath came out in a ragged gasp before he started to filter them through his nose, breathing in deeply as if reminding himself that his lungs were still there.

The rest of the Avengers burst through the elevator at that point. Or, well, Natasha and Clint burst out of the elevator, Bruce followed at a leisurely, calm pace. They froze at the sight of the man on the couch surrounded by unconscious figures with Pepper and Tony both at his side and in front of him.

"Are you going to be okay?" Pepper laid a hand on his shoulder, glancing up helplessly at the billionaire because, wow, what a question. Tony was pretty sure that if anyone had asked him that after getting off the plane coming back from Afghanistan he would've punched them.

"Yeah," came the soft response. "Yeah, I just—" the captain's entire body seemed to shake as he drew in a long breath. "I had a date."

* * *

German:

Wer sind sie?: Who are you?

Wo bin ich?: Where am I?

I planned on making this three chapters and it may or may not become four—I'll have to see what happens in the next one. After this whole story is done, though, I was thinking about doing a similar story that goes along with _Ghost Heart _and _Gentle Heart_ only it has Steve with the USO Chorus girls (they really don't get enough love in my opinion).

That story will be rated mature.

There's also a plan to have him with the Howling Commandos, but I'll get there when I get there.

You can tell me what you think of the ideas or this story in a review or PM, I'll get to them soon, I swear.

Thanks for reading,

Gospel.


	3. Courage

"Kraar, now I shall answer your question. You think that the flying Puntar have no right to wield power over the scavengers. That you are as good as us. But the true Puntar, too, must pay a price for their strength and freedom, and that price is courage."

_The Sight_

David Clement-Davies

* * *

"I had a date."

The shock of that comment ricocheted off the walls once the meaning caught on. Pepper shared a look with Tony, the only one out of them who had even a slight recollection of Peggy Carter. Everyone who had passed eighth grade social studies knew the story—the recording was played during all World War II history classes. Captain Rogers and his calm, unwavering tone and Agent Carter's choked back sobs over a static filled, almost broken recording.

For a long moment, the only sound was Steve's ragged, shaking breaths and the ceramic mug rolling, back and forth, across the ground. It's handle clinked lightly against wood before that, too, stopped.

"Oh, damn," Bruce muttered (finding a pair of pants and a shirt in the whole mess) and slowly approached the super soldier. "Captain Rogers?" The rest of the Avengers seemed to come just a bit closer—yet not close enough to be stifling or crowding. They traced where the Doctor's eyes had landed, trying to find whatever had caused the explicit.

Natasha saw it first. The red, yellow, and white patches across his arms and legs that were colouring now that blood was being pumped through arteries and veins, the crisp, wax-like look of his skin and how it was pulled too tightly over his body. There was a trail of blisters and discolouration around his shoulders that they had missed earlier, leading down his back. Most of them were a Tyrian purple, but there were a few that are a mix between a taupe colour and the shade of jet.

Black and violet decorated pale skin like sickening blobs of paint on a canvas and it looked so out of place. So... _wrong_.

"Wh-whad're you—" The adrenaline had long faded, the shaking coming faster, as if his entire skeleton was vibrating and trying to leave the rest of his body behind. No, not shaking, _shivering_. Steve flinched away from the hands that were reaching for him, the veins in his face looking dark and disturbingly midnight blue. The ice burns on his cheeks stretched as he opened his mouth to speak again, but the soldier gave no sign of feeling them—nor the nasty cut on the corner of his mouth.

"Tony, go get me some water," Bruce snapped at the billionaire. "Some _warm _water. Clint, Natasha, go get as many blankets that you can."

Pepper stepped forward, wringing her hands before instinctually letting them fall to her sides, hiding her nervousness as she did before every meeting she had with the board. "What can I do?"

"Sit next to him," the doctor managed to catch one of Steve's hands and looked over the flayed, cracked skin. "Actually, get the nearest first aid kit that has bandages and hand heaters."

Her bare feet slapped against the floor as she hurried to obey.

Clint and Natasha returned first, piling up the blankets on the side of the couch before moving to gather all the AIM agents and drag them in a circle. Zip ties kept them from being able to escape and the archer stepped away to call someone—possibly SHIELD—to come pick them up.

"How bad is it?" Natasha murmured, grabbing one of the blankets and dropping it over Steve's shoulders.

Bruce held open one of the soldier's eyelids, watching the reaction time of the pupil. "Frostbite, hypothermia, and a major case of dehydration," the doctor murmured. When he let go of the Captain's head it lolled forward and was only caught, gently and around the forehead, by Natasha's quick hands. "The adrenaline knocked it back for a moment, but—"

Another patch of rough shivers made Bruce actually hold the other man down. They could see the muscles in his jaw tensing, his teeth grinding. The redhead rubbed circles into his cheeks with her thumbs, careful to dodge burns and cuts, able to convince them to relax after a few painfully long (but actually short) seconds.

Tony and Pepper managed to come back at almost the same time. The strawberry blonde placed the fire hydrant red case down next to Bruce and sat beside the soldier, looking unsure as to what she should actually do. Five heated water bottles were in the billionaire's arms, balanced precariously and looking as if they might've toppled over at any given moment. He set them down, one by one, next to Steve and crated a pyramid of plastic.

"Talk to him," Bruce told Pepper, reaching for one of the bottles and holding it up to Steve's lips.

"About what?"

He pressed his fingers to the soldier's throat, kneading lightly while Natasha worked on his jaw muscles. The reddened mouth dropped open slightly, dulled, blue eyes staring impassively at Bruce, not fully seeing or comprehending what, exactly, was going on.

"_Anything_." Tilting the bottle, the doctor watched as what looked like a tablespoon of water trickled down into the Captain's mouth—and wrenched back as hands grabbed for him. "Hey, hey," Bruce murmured, keeping his voice soft as those blank, vacant eyes suddenly sharpened, hardening. Suddenly the man on the other end didn't look subdued but rather ready to rip off the hand holding the water with his teeth. "Slowly," the scientist urged, but brought the bottle back up. "Easy, Captain."

Steve whined—a harsh, closed throated sound—as he watched the bottle lift. This time his mouth opened on his own and Natasha placed another blanket around his shoulders. Bruce didn't flinch away when two large hands cupped his own around the plastic.

They were gentle enough.

"He looks like one of those kittens—" Tony started and Bruce levelled a hard look at him.

"If you have nothing better to do," the doctor snapped. "Go move those... yellow monstrosities to where SHIELD can pick them up." He shooed the billionaire away and glanced up at Clint. "There should be some salve in the kit," Bruce nodded to the bright red case by Steve's foot. "Patch him up—_no_."

Hands around the bottle, Steve had tried to speed up the flow of water and gasped when it was pulled away again. Pepper murmured something to him, talking about Stark industries and explaining the new product on the market into his ear and the Soldier blinked, dazed, as if he didn't know what to focus on. His shivers weren't ceding, but they weren't getting worse either and Natasha gently guided the back of his head to her stomach.

Blue eyes fluttered at the warmth. "_F-fuar_," he murmured, teeth chattering loud enough to sound like a drill. "_Ui-uisce_."

"Shhh," The redhead murmured, her finger tips brushing lightly cross his nose and forehead while Pepper curled up against his side, looking slightly uncomfortable with the close contact of a man that was, for better words, a stranger, but the strawberry blonde was nothing if not determined.

"What's he saying?" The CEO asked softly.

Natasha could only shake her head. "I don't know," she murmured.

Clint had taken the cracked and bleeding hand in his own, frowning at the cool touch of the other man's skin, but lathered up salve between his fingers and applied it to the cuts. "These look like they came from glass," he murmured and held the limb up slightly, looking for any glint of fragments. There were no gleams, so the archer lowered it, wrapping a thick bandage around the knuckles.

"Bucky," the captain was staring at Clint, his eyes drooping just a bit and so glazed over he looked as if he was pumped full of pain medication. "_Dov'è la mamma?_"

The archer froze, glancing around at the others surrounding the captain, and swallowed.

"_Lei dovrebbe essere a casa, adesso_..."

Clint took a shuddering breath. "How do I—?"

"Just answer him," Breathed Natasha as Bruce lifted the bottle back up to the soldier's lips.

"Pepper?" The doctor didn't tear his eyes away from the drinking man. "Heat up some broth, please. We're going to try some heavier fluids. The serum appears to be helping him keep everything down."

Nodding, the CEO got up from her place besides Steve—though not before placing a third blanket around his shoulders and a fourth one across his lap.

"_Sta arrivando_," Clint finished wrapping the hand and grabbed a different salve, rubbing it soothingly over the dark bruises decorating the other man's arms. He carefully shied away from the patches of red, yellow, and white, unsure if he would do more harm than good until Bruce said otherwise. "_Lei appena andato a prendere la minestra, ricordi?_" There was a particularly tender spot that made the soldier flinch but the archer continued doggedly, looking apologetic. "_Lei sarà qui presto_."

Steve nodded sluggishly, accepting that answer and patted Clint sloppily on the shoulder while he drank until the bottle was pulled away once more. This time, he didn't follow it. The blankets and weight of hands on his skin were keeping him down. The archer and doctor both had to move, however, as he began to burrow himself into the couch cushions—his eyes still open, but drifting close until there was only a sliver of blue between golden lashes.

"Don't fall asleep yet," Bruce smiled, though, carefully nudging the Captain's shoulder. "You're getting soup, remember? Hot soup?"

There was a soft groan that rose up from deep within Steve's chest, but he didn't close his eyes.

Long, thin fingers ran through the blonde hair, pulling and untangling strands. Natasha met Clint's look and scowled, huffing, but didn't stop as the other assassin grinned knowingly at her.

This was a living legend laying on their couch, smothered in blankets, and ill. A legend that had saved the world. Any one of them were allowed to fuss.

It was _Captain America_, after all.

Pepper came back with a thermos painted red with a black silhouette of Iron Man on it—the cap was off and suddenly the lounge smelled of fresh chicken noodle soup. She handed it over to Bruce and left when her phone started to buzz, glancing back at them with a soft compassion in her eyes before answering it in the kitchen.

"See?" the doctor murmured, moving the thermos close to Steve's nose. The captain's eyes followed the red and black container, pupils dilating and shrinking enough so that he looked like a cat ready to pounce. Bruce moved closer and tested the heat of it on the back of his hand. It wasn't scorching, so he raised it up to the other man's lips. "Slow," he reminded the soldier.

"What do you want me to do about..." Clint motioned helplessly at the furious blisters on Steve's skin. He didn't touch them; the angry violet and black spread across peach like the tissue itself was rotting from the inside-out.

Bruce shook his head. "There's not much we can do about that," he carefully pulled back the thermos, not to cut Steve off but to gently limit the amount of broth making its way down the soldier's throat. "Those will have to heal on their own."

"Damn," Clint murmured.

"Giving the serum's healing factor," Bruce took the thermos away when Steve turned his head, snuggling back into his cocoon of blankets. "I'll give them one to two weeks until they're fully gone." He and the two assassins carefully placed the rest of the pile onto of the soldier, trying not to smother him until the captain only burrowed deeper into the mass of fabric.

"Jarvis?" Tony spoke up and Bruce jumped, whirling around to see the billionaire leaning on the wall besides the elevator. The AIM agents were absent, and there was a distinct layer of sweat across the tanned brow. "Turn the heat up five more degrees."

"_Yes, sir."_

* * *

_White stretched out in front of him, broken only by the crossing of iron holding glass. Cold air whipped across his face, reminding him that his lip may have stopped bleeding a while ago, but the cut was still there. Stinging. Throbbing._

_Metal shook beneath him and he wondered, absently, if this was what an earthquake felt like._

_Impact threw him forward, iron digging into his stomach before he was tossed back like a ragdoll, hitting the chair and slamming into the ground. Ice water washed over him, salty and filling his nose and stomach. Flinching back, he vomited, the bile stinging the back of his throat and a second wave smacked him soundly into the machine that had held the tesseract, effectively driving the air from his lungs. _

_Just in time for it to be replaced by even more of the ocean._

_His fingers clawed at metal, knuckles slamming into the broken edges of machinery, but he didn't notice the blood dripping down his arm. Scrambling for oxygen, his lungs expanded, his mouth opened—and a third waved burst through the glass, burning its way down his throat. His head felt like it was crushing, the pain shooting upward into his skull like a thrown spear._

_Something crunched, groaning and he slipped down metal, gagging and coughing. The plane shifted and Steve Rogers opened his eyes only to see metal stairs rising up from the ground._

_And then there was darkness._

* * *

Natasha looked up from her book and saw a pair of bright, blue eyes staring at her.

The lights in the lounge area were dim enough to read by, but not enough to be intrusive. They glowed a soft, gentle orange on the ceiling, creating mood lighting for no known mood except to help a super soldier slumber on the couch.

"Hello," she said to the eyes peeking out from the cocoon of blankets and was struck by how incredibly young the soldier laying across from her was. Reading about him in books seemed even more odd—reciting the achievements and sacrifice of a man who would be in his nineties. Yet, there he was, not even older than herself. "I'm Agent Natasha Romanoff," she said and almost winced because he wouldn't really know of her or of SHIELD, would he?

Steve rose up from laying down, rubbing at the dark bags under his eyes with his bandaged hand. Blinking slowly, Steve stared at the white material and picked at it with his nails. "Where am I?"

"Stark Tower. Manhattan, New York." She answered without pause, still waiting, watching. "There's a mug of tea in front of—"

His hands moved faster than Natasha would have ever believed if she hadn't seen it for herself. They snatched up the mug, cradling the warm ceramic. A soft, relieved breath escaped the captain's bloodied lips as he held it to his chest. "I'm Steve Rogers," he murmured after a long second and gave her a shaky smile. "It's a pleasure to meet you, ma'am."

Not many people have said _that_ to her but the redhead gave him a soothing smile anyway—he looked like he was going to jump up and make a run for it at any moment. "We put that together," she grinned at the flush spreading across his discoloured cheeks. "With the shield and everything."

Steve perked up, his eyes moving over the room. "Where—" Almost immediately, his gaze was drawn to the red, white, and blue disk leaning against the couch. He drunk some of the tea as if it was just second nature to drink anything from a mug in his hand and reached for it.

Watching with something that felt like amusement (and a little bit flabbergast), Natasha tilted her head to the side when he seemed to curl up on top of the shield, using it like some sort of half-assed mattress because, really, it didn't look _that_ comfortable. His head was cradled against the curve, hands gripping the leather straps tight enough that his knuckles turned white.

That six-foot-two man who weighed two hundred and forty pounds had managed to curl up into a ball in his shield with just his legs sticking out a bit. Blankets covered him still so he looked like a giant mass of soldier and fluff.

Quite frankly, it was the most adorable thing Natasha had ever seen.

"Are you warm enough?" She asked with a smile and he grunted, pulling the blankets over his head like a disgruntled teenager not willing to get up in the morning. Taking a picture with her phone, the assassin sent it to Pepper. _He's like a little turtle_, she typed out.

_Oh my god,_ she could just about hear the CEO's sweet, girlish giggle on the other side. _That's just not fair. I'm coming up_.

"Waz that?"

Looking up, Natasha saw him peeking through the blankets again, over his shield. He looked exhausted still, but curious and there was a curious tilt to his voice—not quite a Brooklyn accent because there was something underneath it. Glancing down, she looked over the technology in her hand. "It's a mobile phone," Holding it up, she turned it so he could see it. "You can call or text—_write_ to people using it."

"Like a radio."

Humming, she nodded, frowning a bit as she tried to pinpoint exactly what he sounded like. "It's like a telegraph and a radio combined."

The elevator doors opened, but Natasha figured Steve was too tired to jump as Pepper strode out in a pair of yoga pants and a sweatshirt.

"Hello, Steve," the CEO gave him a small, but bright smile. "How are you feeling?"

His wide eyes blinked up at the woman towering over him, as if trying to figure out just who she was. Gradually, recognition dawned on the soldier's face. "I met you earlier," he murmured and his cheeks turned red—at the rudeness? A pretty lady? Natasha wasn't quite sure. "Better, ma'am."

Waving her hand, the strawberry blonde sat down beside him. "Just Pepper is fine."

The redhead, however, focused on his voice again—how he said I and turned it into Oi, the hardened consonants...

_Irish. He had an Irish accent_.

It was faint, but bled through, and she looked back down at her book as Steve and Pepper continued to talk. The history books had said that he was born to two Irish immigrants. It would make sense that he would have some form of an accent.

"—He's Howard's son, then," Steve said tiredly, his eyes already partially closed. "And Howard?"

"Died in a car crash a long time ago."

The captain closed his eyes as if someone had just shoved a knife through his gut. "Right," he murmured. "R-right."

The two women watched him before Pepper spoke up. "Are you going to be alright?" She asked for the second time that day.

Steve's body shook as he laid his head down, each breath catching in his throat as he closed his eyes. For a long moment, he didn't answer—and Natasha didn't expect him too. Then, he mouth opened, closed, and opened again.

"No," he choked out. "No, I don't think so."

* * *

_Sometimes he dreams of a fall._

_Sometimes he dreams of a catch._

_That's the one that hurts the most. The catch. _

_**He**__ didn't fall because Steve catches Bucky around the wrist and hauls him up into a train moving faster than any car they've ever been in. He __**catches**__ him. They laugh themselves silly against the wall, snorting and high on adrenaline, hands on each other to make sure they're both still alive._

_Bucky feels so real in those dreams. His eyes shining with laughter, his breath warm, his laughter echoing against steal._

_Gale finds them like that, Zola pushed in front of him, the cold air biting at their fingers, their cheeks, their noses. _

_In those dreams Steve is happy, grinning with Commandos and breathing in cool air, shield light against his back._

_The nightmares are when he wakes up._

* * *

Boxes arrived at Stark Tower later on in the week while the cuts were fading away to pink skin on the Captain. Tony dug through them, shifting through the old things of his father while Bruce looked on, arms crossed over his chest, waiting for the readings he was having JARVIS run to finish.

"What are you looking for?"

"My dad and Agent Carter wanted to gather up everything that was Steve's," Tony grunted and looked as if he was about to fall into one of the boxes. "Most of it wasn't really..." _important_, he wanted to say, but the word died in his mouth. Who knew what would be important to the man now sleeping in his 'living room'. Most of this stuff was garbage to him (simply because it belonged to Howard Stark, but Tony chose to ignore that on good and bad days). "But there was a—_ah ha._" He pulled out a picture frame and blew the dust off the glass. "I'll give him everything, of course, but I figured he might want to have this, first."

Bruce accepted the frame and adjusted his glasses. The Howling Commandos smiled up at him—full and complete so the picture must have been taken before Sergeant Barnes had died. Steve Rogers had one arm wrapped around his friend, his teeth flashing the camera, the woman next to him, Peggy Carter, had her arms crossed over her chest and was smiling in exasperation, but there was a true joy shining in her eyes and on her lips.

They all looked happy.

They all looked so _young_.

A tank stood in the background, next to a horse, and a forest stretched on behind it. Germany, maybe. Or Italy.

"I think he'd like that," the doctor smiled that soft, shy smile of his, holding out the picture.

Tony Stark, of course, ended up dragging Bruce Banner upstairs with him anyway. The television was silent, even though Clint was sitting on the couch, watching something that involved UFOs and what looked like the ancient Mayan civilization. At the table sat Natasha and Steve, the chessboard laid out between them. Neither of them looked up when the two scientists entered, the Captain reaching forward and moving the black bishop two spaces.

"Hey—"

"_Shhhhh_," Clint hissed at Tony, pressing one finger to his lips and turning back to look at the two sitting at the table. "If you interrupt the game," the archer whispered when they came close, "Natasha said she'd rip out your spine and beat you with it."

Bruce glanced over at them. "How long have they been playing?"

Blinking, as if he had been stuck in a limbo or had been staring at a computer screen for too long, Clint glanced down at his watch. "Four hours."

"_Four hours?_" Tony sputtered and froze as two pairs of equally aggravated blue eyes looked up at him. The battered face of Steve Rogers—the ice burns still having not healed on his cheeks yet—was almost dark as his gaze narrowed. Natasha looked as if she would jump over the distance between them and rip out his throat with her teeth. "O-_kay_," the billionaire murmured, holding up his hands and grinning sheepishly, sinking down behind the couch, playing with the corner of the picture frame.

He was about to lose his nerve and head back downstairs when the sound of a chess piece landing on wood echoed in the silent room.

"Check mate," Steve said, a small, pleased smile on his face.

Natasha leaned forward, her eyes narrowed as she examined the board before, finally, she sighed and knocked over her king with a fingernail. "Good game, Captain—"

"Finally!" Clint crowed. "Jarvis! Unmute!"

"_Yes, sir,_" the AI sounded faintly amused and, suddenly, the historic past of aliens and ancient civilizations filled the room, all narrated by a man with a posh London accent.

As the redhead stood up to head into the kitchen, she left Steve at the table, alone, to stare at the chessboard. Bruce shoved Tony in the super soldier's direction, pointing to the picture frame in his hand. 'Give it to him' the doctor mouthed before he was dragged onto the couch by Barton who was pointing out a guy being interviewed on the documentary with wild, bushy hair.

"Hey, Captain," Tony pulled out the chair Natasha had been sitting in and helped the soldier rearrange the pieces back into formation with one hand and kept the frame on his lap with the other. "I was, well—"

Steve glanced up at him, one eyebrow raised—but not in a judging manner. He was curious, it seemed—and Tony basically threw his fist outward, the picture, luckily, staying in his hand.

"My dad had it, but I think it's yours."

Gently, the captain took it in his bandaged hands and held it as if it was made of porcelain.

"I know it's not equal to, well, anything—"

"Tony," Steve's voice was soft and the smile on his face was small, but bright even though there was a wet shine to his eyes. "_Thank you_."

* * *

_That night he dreams of Erskine and Howard and a machine that was like an Egyptian Sarcophagus. He dreams of pain and light and feeling that high of oxygen and life. He dreams of glass underfoot, of blood, of cyanide, of red, white, and blue miniskirts. _

_Most of all, though, he dreams about his mother in the kitchen with a bowl of soup and a messy apron, smiling at him when he comes through the door with extra pocket change. _

_He won't tell her where he got it. _

_She'll never ask._

* * *

"I think," Steve ran his fingers over his shield, tracing the painted stripes and the white star, lunch spread out around him. "I think I need to move out. I can't stay here forever." His eyes didn't have the dark shadows underneath them anymore, but that didn't mean they didn't look tired. The bandages around his knuckles had been removed, leaving only pink scars behind that would fade away with time.

"Tony will say you could," the CEO gave him a small smile. "But, yes, you're right."

Clint and Natasha glanced at each other then back at him. "You are fun to have around, though," the archer grinned and yelped when a sharp elbow slammed into his side.

"Four conditions," the redhead said, her face expressionless as she held up her hand to count them off.

Tilting his head to the side, the captain met her eyes to show her he was listening.

"One; you will stay in touch."

Steve raised an eyebrow. "As if Tony would let _that_ happen," he muttered.

Natasha gave him a sharp smile. "Two; you will let us help pick out your apartment."

"I figured, ma'am."

"Three; you will join the Avengers."

He blinked at that one but didn't disagree.

"Four; you will get a pet so you won't be alone."

For a second, Steve looked as if he was about to disagree with that last one, a small frown on his face and his mouth opening. "I don't think I can afford an animal," he said, finally. "And I wouldn't know how to take care of a pet anyway."

"Don't worry," Natasha waved her hand lazily. "It's just like taking care of Clint."

"Hey!" The archer exclaimed, but there was a broad grin on his face. "They have books for that kind of stuff and, believe me, you have _enough_ money."

The soldier frowned and sighed, looking down at his hands before his shoulders broadened, his back straightened. This was the man they had been waiting for and the change between Steve Rogers and Captain America was almost staggering. They might have been the same man with the same smile and the same shining eyes, but the soldier side was a survivor, a warrior, and the other side... the other side was just a kid from Brooklyn.

"I can do this," he said, taking a deep breath and then exhaling. "I want a dog."

"That was fast," Clint murmured and dodged the fork thrown at his head. "To be honest, I think everyone in history figured you would be a dog person anyway."

Steve just raised an eyebrow. "You can take dogs for jogs in the park," he deadpanned.

"Apartment, then dog, how about that," Pepper said, typing on her phone. "Any personal preferences?"

"Above ground and in Brooklyn," the soldier grinned at their knowing looks and shrugged his shoulders sheepishly. "I'll take the comfort where I can."

Natasha hummed and stole a bit of Clint's chicken when he wasn't looking. "Pepper can set up time with a real estate agent, I'm sure—"

"_Dogs_," Clint grinned as if in a dream-like state and it turned into a smile when Steve snorted into his hand. "I love dogs, did I tell you?"

"Yes," the soldier murmured, polishing off the last of his sesame chicken. "About sixteen times, I believe."

Natasha looked over at the archer. "Only sixteen? You're slacking."

He frowned at her and turned to the Captain. "I like dogs. I like dogs. I like—" A hand slapped over his mouth and pushed him to the floor.

"We might have to do the dog first," Pepper smiled apologetically, ignoring the two assassins as Clint lunged for Natasha and Natasha wrapped her thighs around Clint's head. "The real estate agent won't be free until Friday."

"We can go look at dogs now?" Clint's managed as his face turned a purple that almost matched the arrow on his uniform. "Gedddoff me, Nat!"

The Black Widow kicked him away from her and slunk back into her chair as if nothing had happened while the archer wheezed on the ground.

It took very little time for everyone to finish their lunch after that and, since they were all dressed and didn't really need anything, they all managed to pile into one of Tony's limousines with Happy in the driver's seat. Steve found himself between Natasha and Pepper, fighting the urge to itch at the bandages covering the blisters across his neck and shoulders, leaning forward so he wouldn't aggravate them on the back of his seat. Bruce had told them they would itch, but hearing 'don't scratch' and actually not scratching were two different things.

The CEO typed out a few things on her phone before looking up at him with a critical eye. "You don't want a small dog, right?"

"What use would I have for a small dog?" Steve muttered and Clint snorted, holding out his own phone to show the soldier a picture of an animal that looked more rat than dog. The Captain made a face that had everyone grinning. "No, thank you."

"Something that has stamina, is smart, and likes to be active," Natasha leaned across Steve to look at Pepper's phone. "A shepherding breed, maybe. But not an overly protective one."

"Sorry Cap, no German Shepherds for you."

Steve winced, though his eyes lit up a fraction. "I got bit by one of those a few months back—" he stopped and swallowed, taking a shuddering breath and then closed his eyes. "During the war, I mean." Tugging at his pant leg, the captain lowered his head. "Had a nasty bite," he added softly.

"I got bit by a Caucasian Mountain dog in Russia," Natasha said and pushed up her sleeve so they could see the pale marks around her shoulder. "Clint got bitten by a rat terrier once."

"You promised to never tell anyone!"

"I lied."

Pepper watched as Steve got distracted from the memories by the two bickering assassins, his eyes lighting up with gentle amusement.

"Howard got bit by a furious Chihuahua when we were in Germany," the captain grinned. "It kept nipping him at the ankles and chased him around the camp."

"What happened to it?"

Steve shrugged. "I think they found the owner, but I'm not really sure—we were going to invade a HYDRA base the next day." He drummed his fingers on the leather seat. "Did we have to take the limousine?" The soldier blurted. "Don't you guys have a car?"

"What?" Clint blinked and frowned. "A car? Why would we need a car?"

"Are you saying that when there's an attack in the city you just _run_ there?"

The archer snorted. 'No! We've got motorcycles!"

"You can all fit in a car! Why do you all need different modes of transportation?"

They didn't really have an answer to that and Pepper giggled behind her hand. "Happy will drop us off a few blocks away," she told Steve as the assassins looked at each other, seemingly having a conversation from the movement of their eyes. "It's a pretty big adoption agency, so they should have dogs of all ages and breeds."

"Dogs!" Clint clapped his hands together and fell off his seat when Natasha put her feet against his stomach and _pushed_.

The adoption agency is not _big_, Steve realized when they walk into the building. It was _huge._ "We need to edit your definition of big," he murmured to Pepper, looking around at the people bustling about, at the dogs and cats, birds and reptiles. Natasha was already eyeing a black cat with all the mannerisms of someone who didn't come into a shop and weren't looking for anything but were probably going to be getting something anyway.

Clint, of course, was already admiring a beautiful white and black goshawk.

"Dogs are this way," Pepper smiled and grabbed him by the bicep, leading him further in, past adults and children of various ages. A young girl walked past them with a killer wannabe ball python wrapped around her wrist and Steve stared after her until she was swallowed up by the crowd.

"What if I changed my mind?" he murmured but held still as she wound her arm through his.

The CEO just smiled up at him. "Then you'll just have to stay at the tower."

Making a face, the captain picked up his pace, resisting the urge to pull out his dog tags and play with them (a bad habit he'd gotten from Dum Dum of all people) and instead focused on the warmth of Pepper's skin against him—a contrast to the chill of the air conditioning.

He shivered and she squeezed his arm, but didn't say anything.

Steve breathed out through his nose and stepped forward to look over the rooms with blockades at the doors and the dogs inside.

The first one held small breeds and he moved on.

"May I help you?" A woman wearing a green shirt and dark jeans approached them, parakeet on her shoulder. She looked at them like they were the cutest things on the planet.

Steve just shrugged—wouldn't be the first time he was mistaken as the boyfriend/husband of someone else (generally those 'someone else's tended to be chorus girls). "I'm looking for a young, medium sized dog."

"That's calm, well behaved, but very active," Pepper added with a small smile.

The captain flushed and rubbed the back of his neck. "Yeah, and that."

"Well, all the medium sized dogs over a year old are this way..."

They followed the woman as she chatted, Steve glancing into the rooms they passed. He froze at one, staring past the door to the three dogs on the other side. A chocolate Labrador immediately got to its feet, tail wagging, tongue hanging out, the second resident was a larger than normal Siberian husky that had crystalline eyes who paced the back of the room, but the third... the third sat still, meeting Steve's eyes squarely with dark russet eyes.

The dog's fur was rich and black with sepia around the paws and crawling up the legs as well as forming a bib around the mane-like neck.

"That one," Steve pointed without fully realizing what he was doing.

Pepper reached for the sheet on the wall. "Treasa, female, bohemian shepherd. Her owner died in a car crash two weeks ago."

Stepping over the gate, Steve walked into the room and held out his hand to her. "Treasa," he murmured as she sniffed his palm. "_Ciallaíonn 'ainm neart_." Pointed ears flicked and turned forward, her muzzle nudging against his wrist until her rubbed his nails behind her ears and buried his hands into her fur. "Alone, too, huh?"

Her forehead bumped against his chest and he smiled.

* * *

_Men fell around him, bodies splayed out on the dirt and he wished that his shield could protect them all from the rain of lead that fell upon them. He could do nothing, though. Nothing except to keep pushing forward. Dirt flew up into his face and it takes a few seconds for him to realize what the ringing in his ears meant._

_Grenades. Mines._

_Steve followed the path of the dead, stepping on bodies of fallen comrades even though he knew (he __**knew**__) that he would vomit in the woods later, away from prying eyes. He didn't realize he had reached the end of the line until he was running up a steep incline. The vibranium made sure he couldn't feel the bullets hitting his target of a shield. _

_The gun weighed heavily in his hand._

_The boy he shot looked just like Bucky._

* * *

Steve woke up with a sob stuck in his throat, hands grasping for anything—

Something warm pressed against him, a wet, cold nose brushed his feverish skin and he reached for the dog, burrowing his face into Treasa's soft fur.

He sobbed and choked, tears running down his cheeks and mouth open with each breathless gasp. It was muffled as the soldier pressed himself closer to the warm body, his arms wrapping around the strong neck, fingers tangling themselves in dark fur. Something inside him broke and clicked all at once. His heart seemingly falling into alignment with time, his mind holding onto the past.

But he had to let go.

He needed to.

It hurt, oh _damn, _did it hurt—

"Oh, God," Steve Rogers said, begging the shadows of his room to drag him back under where there was no feeling, where there was nothing except the cold and the ice and forgetfulness. Where dreams were not remembered and ghosts could not haunt him. "I'm sorry. I'm _sorry_."

Treasa snuffled and huffed, licking his cheeks and pressing her paws against his shoulders and stomach, tail smacking the bed and his thigh with a _thump, thump, thump._

Steve Rogers cried. He cried for lost love, lost friendship, lost companionship. He cried for the soldiers, the civilians, the victims, the chorus girls, Peggy, Bucky, the Commandos.

Most of all, though, Steve Rogers cried for himself.

And, laying in bed with his hands buried into warm fur, he heard movement upstairs—the clattering of pots, the laughter of Tony and Clint, and realized...

He was not alone.

* * *

That's the end. I open it all up to other people's depictions at this point, might write a one-shot here or there. This was just the story of Steve waking up and accepting he wasn't able to go back (and that he had the chance to make new friends). I welcome all ideas as to what he does after the fact, though.

Does he join SHIELD? Do the Avengers break into his apartment all the time (the answer to that is _yes_)? How does he solve the car problem?

Fun fact about Bohemian Shepherds: despite their reputations as herding dogs, unlike most they cannot double as a guard dog due to their kind disposition. They, wait for it, use themselves as shields and distractions against larger, heavier predators because they are faster and far more intelligent. They are also the only herding dog known to separate fighting animals.

I also have one and he's a sweetheart so I'm completely biased.

Irish Gealic:

Fuar: Cold

Uisce: Water

Ciallaíonn 'ainm neart: Your name means strength.

Italian:

Dov'è la mamma?: Where's mom?

Lei dovrebbe essere a casa, adesso: She should be home, now.

Sta arrivando: She's coming

Lei appena andato a prendere la minestra, ricordi?: She just picked up the soup, remember?

Lei sarà qui presto: She'll be here soon.

Thank you for reading and, please, drop a review to tell me what you think!

I have no doubt I'll be seeing some of you soon.

Gospel


	4. Note

Due to popular demand there's now a sequel to this story called _The Sacrfice_ that takes place before Iron Man 3 and Thor: The Dark World.


End file.
